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Agency to speed up land acquisition

Monday, November 9, 2009

Cape Town - Government says the newly established Housing Development Agency (HDA) will go a long way in assisting provinces and municipalities with the acquisition of appropriate land for the development of human settlements.

The agency was created to fast-track South Africa's housing delivery programme.

Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge said on Monday that to date, the HDA had received the land acquisition and assembly plans for six provinces and three metropolitan municipalities.

He was speaking at the Social Protection and Community Development Cluster Programme of Action (PoA) media briefing in Cape Town. This is the first report since the inception of the cluster under the new administration. This briefing provides an update on the implementation of the priorities outlined in the PoA.

The HDA is currently developing the Macro Coordination and Alignment Framework to ensure that existing and new human settlements developments are delivered in a coordinated and integrated manner by government departments and spheres of government.

The HDA assists organs of state in dealing with housing developments that have not been completed within the anticipated project period. It further assists organs of state with the upgrading of informal settlements.

In performing its functions, the agency must ensure that residential and community developments are sustainable, viable and appropriately located.

Other functions of the agency includes developing strategic plans with regard to the identification and acquisition of state, privately and communal owned land which is suitable for residential and community development.

It also monitors progress of the development of land and landed property acquired for the purposes of creating sustainable human settlements.

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